on the eve of a memory
by faorism
Summary: Sasuke/Sakura/Naruto. She does not feel old in moments like this, but paradoxically grand and small at once.


_Notes:_ Sasuke/Sakura/Naruto. Sequel set sixty years after my previous S/S/N fiction, "the noble wife." Featuring domesticity and mentions of Kakashi/Iruka. Started as a response to a writing meme, and finally finished after an inspiration contact high I received from **calciseptine**, who just posted her disastrously beautiful "here is the deepest secret nobody knows," a Thor/Loki fiction you should all find on ao3 and read because it's gorgeous and wonderful.

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The Hayate enclosure is home to a single (albeit large) single-story building; a bathhouse; and a sometimes fruitful, sometimes flowering, oftentimes embarrassingly mediocre garden. It's a comfortable space, with a staunchly traditional exterior that felt old-fashioned even when Sakura first saw it so many years ago as a teen. (Actually, she had walked by it for all her life, but it wasn't until Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura's disastrous attempt to stalk and unmask Kakashi that she realized it belonged to him.) The furnishing is more modern but just as tired, with a tapestry of odd scratches, marks, dents and burns that quietly detail the lives of its former (and current) occupants.

At the far end of the property, there is also a kennel with temporary lodging for ninken staying for the night, and a more permanent area for the enclosure's guard dog Trout and his mate and newborn pups. Whether it is written in the blood contract or if it's a polite understanding between everyone involved, humans rarely visit the kennel for something other than to repair to the structure. Iruka told Sakura that in the sixty years he's lived at the Hayate's, he had only been invited seven times. (Iruka's calculation does not include the months he stayed at the kennel in untethered mourning of his partner five years ago, and Sakura never sees fit to correct his record.)

As she sits on the kennel floor with a pup cradled in the crook of her arm, Sakura jealously appreciates the privilege she's been given. That the invitation has also been extended to her husbands makes no difference; it's still a honor that carries such a profound level of respect that even now her cheeks flush with excitement.

Beside her, a stray movement draws her attention to the three pups resting in her husband's lap, each barely a week old. The middle one—Tai, if she recalls correctly—wiggles restlessly between Sasuke's legs. Tai slowly rolls around until he makes it onto his back, not minding in the least the fact that he kicks his siblings during the entire process. He mouths at Sasuke's ankle expectantly, and, understanding Tai's silent demand, Sasuke immediately brings two fingers to stroke the pup's pale belly.

Tai keels warmly at the touch.

Sasuke schools his face into a blank, unfocused stare (Sakura's mind cruelly supplies _of course it's unfocused, idiot_, and she cannot help but hate herself for the thought), but she can see right through the facade. She has been with him long enough to know when he's pleased and feeling indulgent; plus, that his smile ticks upward at the corner of his lips gives him away instantly. Her throat clenches shut with fondness at the familiar expression, and only a grand sense of spousal camaraderie keeps Sakura from breaking the moment by acknowledging the transgression.

Naruto, however, does not bind himself to a similar obligation, cooing, "You always spoil the little ones" from where he lies on the floor in front of them. At the noise, the pup sleeping on Naruto's chest nestles deeper between boldly colored folds of Naruto's Hokage robes.

Sasuke keeps stroking Tai, not caring that the action has been noticed. "I only give them the attention they deserve."

"You never spoil _me_."

It's a lie, and all three of them know it, but Sasuke must be feeling accommodating since he plays along. "Like I said, you get the attention you deserve. Nothing less, and certainly nothing more." The whisper of a contrarian smile crosses Sasuke's lips, and Sakura has to put in a conscious effort not to move other and kiss it sweetly.

"Besides," Sakura offers, "you get enough of my attention that Sasuke doesn't need to give up anymore."

Naruto's gaze stays on Sasuke's tender handling of the pup for a few seconds longer before it flickers to Sakura. His eyes are bright and happy, young like they were the first day he stepped into his life's work. A grin stretches his mouth, wrinkling his skin along his laugh lines. "You're right. You are the only one who loves me in this marriage anymore. I say we dump the extra load where we found him and focus our golden years on just the two of us."

Sakura laughs loudly, causing Sasuke and Naruto to simultaneously check on their respective puppies to make sure Sakura hadn't disturbed them. She hadn't, but Naruto still looks a little accusatory when she says, "And how about if I want to run off with Sasuke?"

Naruto pouts, bottom lip stuck out further than his nose. "Lame. We know who's still got it going _on_, and that dark and mysterious schtick Sasuke used to use as collateral against us abandoning him doesn't work anymore. We've seen him cry over a child's dental hygiene; there's nothing dark about a guy after you've seen him emotional over a thing like that."

"That's not even close to fair. It was our first kid; it was his first loose tooth. You're allowed to shed a few tears over such a monumental occasion."

"And as I remember," Sasuke supplies easily, "you spent the next week in a cold sweat fearing Heiwa was going to swallow the tooth."

Naruto shrugs, nonplussed. His arm facing them slithered from its position during this short exchange, and Sakura spots it now flush against Sasuke's cross legs, a hand at his hip. She cannot see exactly what it does, but she imagines the thumb rubbing hooped circles over Sasuke's clothes, as Naruto is wont to do when he is next to either of his spouses and nothing else to do. Smile broadening her lips, the easiness of the familiar gesture draws out a sigh from Sakura that she can do nothing to hold back. The heavy sound distracts her two boys, and Sasuke knows to lean into her and press an kiss imprecisely but confidently against the lobe of her ear. He smoothly corrects his aim, moving a few inches over to touch his lips against her cheek.

Her husband's kindness overwhelms her suddenly, and Sakura is struck with an old exhaustion that sinks into her muscles like molasses. She remembers not for the first time that it has been _decades_—not minutes or days or months or a handful of years but honest _decades_—since she held her children like this, coddling them in the crook of her arm. It's been ages since she cradled the grandchildren Ichiru and Sango—her two girls—gave her. They have sprouted out a cluster of family on their own, away from her—such a humbling thought. Even her eldest, Heiwa, is not entirely hers anymore: he has not had and will not have children, nor does he want a partner, but he has the ninken, bequeathed to him by Kakashi; he has Iruka with whom he shares an easy friendship and the Hayate grounds; and he will soon start training an apprentice to carry on both the ninken and chidori after he too is gone.

She does not feel old in moments like this, but paradoxically grand and small at once.

The puppy at her elbow suddenly stirs, nuzzling up against her, seeking even more warmth. She relaxes, Sasuke still with his forehead pressed against her temple. Naruto joins in by nudging her knee with his and leaving it there, and the heaviness in her heart leaves her as easily as it came.

"Okay?" Sasuke murmurs, kisses hidden in the way his lips form words against her skin.

She doesn't answer because Naruto sneezes and wakes the poor puppy on his chest, and the puppy begins to whine, which wakes up Tai, and Tai blinks, looks up at Sasuke, stares, and then _welps_ like he's dying, waking his sibling at either side, who cry in shocked barks that finally startle Sakura's puppy. It takes less than a minute, but it's all the time needed to destroy the tableau and set Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto into a scrabble, shushing the yapping ninken. And even amongst the chaos, Sakura laughs.

Because, everything is and will and has always been okay. Because even after all this time—with so many of their friends gone, displaced or falling to old age, with her children grown, with her Konaha different and the same as it had been when she was a girl—there are three things she can count on: Sasuke's devotion, Naruto's heart, and—unerringly—herself.


End file.
